Hsiung Shih-hui (1894-) served Chiang Kaishek as an officer on the Northern Expedition, governor of Kiangsi (1931-41), head of a military mission to the United States (194243), and head of the Northeast headquarters of the Military Affairs Commission (1945-47). He then lived in Hong Kong, Macao, and Bangkok before moving to Taiwan in 1954. Born in an agricultural village in Anyi hsien, Kiangsi, Hsiung Shih-hui was the sixth of seven children. His father was active in military affairs and often acted as instructor for the local militia. Hsiung received his early education in a private school in his native village. In 1908 his father enrolled him in the Kiangsi Army Primary School, and in the spring of 1911 he transferred to the Fourth Army Middle School at Nanking. About this time, he secretly joined the T'ung-meng-hui. After the outbreak of the Wuchang revolt in October 1911, Hsiung joined the revolutionary forces. Feng Kuo-chang (q.v.) defeated the republican troops, and Hsiung returned to Nanking in December. He then became a staff officer under the republican tutuh [military governor] Ch'eng Te-ch'uan.

In the spring of 1913 Hsiung resigned from his post and went to north China, where he entered the Ch'ing-ho Army Preparatory School. After completing the course, he enrolled at the Paoting Military Academy as a member of the second class. He was graduated in the summer of 1915. In December, when Ts'ai O (q.v.) and others took action against Yuan Shih-k'ai, Hsiung went to Yunnan province and became executive officer in the 38th Regiment of the 4th Division of the Second Army, commanded by Li Lieh-chün (q.v.). A number of other officers who later became prominent in the Nationalist military establishment—notably Chang Chih-chung, Chu P'ei-te (qq.v.), and Wang Chün—also served in the 4th Division.

In the spring of 1920 Hsiung Shih-hui, along with Chu P'ei-te and other officers of the 4th Division, supported Li Lieh-chün's attempt to wrest control of the Yunnan troops in Kwangtung from Li Ken-yuan (q.v.). The attempt was unsuccessful, and Hsiung went to Tokyo, where he enrolled at the Shikan Gakko [military academy] in 1920. After graduation in 1924, he returned to Canton, where Sun Yat-sen was attempting to consolidate a Nationalist base. Hsiung became chief instructor at the Yunnan Army Military Officers School, which came under the jurisdiction of the Third Army, commanded by Chu P'ei-te.

When the Northern Expedition was launched in July 1926, Hsiung Shih-hui was given the assignment of subverting Lai Shih-huang, the commander of the 4th Kiangsi Division. At the beginning of August, Hsiung met with Lai, who was a personal friend, at Juichin. Through Lai Shih-huang, Hsiung gained regular access to the war plans of Sun Ch'uan-fang (q.v.). He relayed the information to Ho Ying-ch'in (q.v.) for transmittal to Chiang Kai-shek. In mid-August, Lai received command of the Fourteenth Army, and Hsiung Shih-hui became the Kuomintang representative in that unit. In September 1926 the Fourteenth Army began to advance against Teng Ju-cho, the Kiangsi tuchün [military governor]. Kanchow was occupied on 6 September, and on orders from Li Chi-shen and Ho Ying-ch'in in Canton, Lai Shih-huang proceeded to garrison the city. Hsiung Shih-hui led two regiments northward in conjunction with the Fifth Division of the Second Army. The advance through southern Kiangsi assisted the revolutionary forces besieging Nanchang, the provincial capital. Hsiung's forces arrived in northern Kiangsi in time to join that battle, and Nanchang was occupied on 8 November 1926.

Toward the end of November, the victorious Nationalists established a Kiangsi provincial political committee, and Hsiung Shih-hui was appointed to it. In the meantime. Ho Yingch'in had begun to advance into Fukien. After Ho had captured Changchow and Chuanchow in November, Lai Shih-huang's Fourteenth Army was ordered to that front. The forces of Ho Ying-ch'in captured Foochow at the beginning of December, and the Fourteenth Army was assigned to eastern Kiangsi to prepare for an attack on Chekiang. Hsiung Shih-hui then received command of the 1st Division of the Fourteenth Army, retaining his position as party representative.

After the Nationalists consolidated control of the Shanghai-Nanking area in March 1927, Hsiung and his forces were stationed at Kiangyin on garrison duty. In May, the Fourteenth Army resumed its northward march as part of the forces under the general command of Ho Ying-ch'in. Hsiung's division crossed the Yangtze, drove northward, and prepared for an attack on Shantung. But news of the advance on Nanking by T'ang Sheng-chih (q.v.) caused Nationalist commander Pai Ch'ung-hsi to order a general retreat. Hsiung withdrew to Yangchow in August 1927 and then took up garrison duties at Wusih and Kiangyin.

At the end of August 1927, when the Chihli- Shantung forces met the Nationalist forces in a critical battle at Lungtan, the Fourteenth Army was ordered to advance from Kiangyin and cut off the enemy's line of retreat. Lai Shih-huang delayed too long, and, although the Nationalists won the battle of Lungtan, he was charged with dereliction in the performance of duty and was executed by a firing squad on 31 December. The Fourteenth Army was reorganized as the Thirteenth Army, wdth Hsiung Shih-hui as deputy commander. Hsiung retained command of the 1st Division, which was redesignated the 37th Division. In January 1928 Pai Ch'ung-hsi, then the Woosung-Shanghai garrison commander, took the field in a campaign against T'ang Shengchih's remnant forces in Hunan province. Hsiung was assigned as acting garrison commander at Shanghai. When plans were made for the final stage of the Northern Expedition in early 1928, Hsiung Shih-hui's 37th Division was designated a reserve force for the First Group Army commanded by Chiang Kai-shek. On 1 April 1928 Hsiung turned over the Woosung-Shanghai garrison force to Ch'ien Ta-chün (q.v.).

When Japanese resistance to the northward advance of the Nationalist forces through Shantung led to the Tsinan Incident in May 1928, Chiang Kai-shek named Hsiung Shih-hui and Lo Chia-lun (q.v.) to meet with the Japanese and work out a peaceful settlement of the affair. The Japanese rejected the two delegates on the grounds that they were too junior in rank. Ho Ch'eng-chün (q.v.) was assigned to handle the negotiations, and Hsiung went to Nanking. After the successful conclusion of the Northern Expedition in mid- 1928, Hsiung was reappointed Woosung- Shanghai garrison commander in October. In the military regroupings of 1929 Hsiung received command of the Eight Army, which, however, was reorganized soon thereafter as the 5th Division. In May 1930, when the Nationalists began so-called bandit-suppression campaigns against Communist forces in rural areas, Hsiung was assigned to direct military operations in the Kiangsu-Chekiang-Anhwei area. In December, he was ordered to Nanchang for consultation with Chiang Kaishek. The plane in which he was traveling, however, crashed as it was taking off at Shanghai, and Hsiung received a foot injury. It took him several months to recover, but in June 1931 he finally reported to Nanchang, where Chiang Kai-shek appointed him chief of staff in his field headquarters. In that capacity, he participated in the 1931 campaign against the Communists.

In December 1931 Hsiung Shih-hui was named governor of Kiangsi. The Chinese Communists under Mao Tse-tung had established a central soviet government at Juichin, with its territorial base in the south-central part of the province. Hsiung was given responsibility for civil affairs, education, and peace preservation in the province. He also became a member of the provincial branch of the Kuomintang. In May 1933 he was given the additional office of chief of staff in Chiang Kai-shek's Nanchang headquarters. In 1933 and 1934 Hsiung Shih-hui and Yang Yung-t'ai (q-v.) were regarded as being the two most influential men in the Generalissimo's headquarters at Nanchang. Yang Yung-t'ai, whom Hsiung had introduced to Chiang Kai-shek, served as chief secretary at the Nanchang headquarters, which was a major administrative center for political, military, and party affairs not only for Kiangsi but also for the provinces of Honan, Hupeh, and Anhwei. Both Hsiung and Yang were active in promoting the New Life Movement {see Chiang Kai-shek). And both men were regarded as pillars of the so-called political science faction, which was composed of senior officials who exercised major influence in the National Government in the 1930's and 1940's. After the Nationalist encirclement campaigns had forced the Communists to evacuate their base area in southern Kiangsi in the autumn of 1934, Hsiung Shih-hui enjoyed an interlude of relative tranquility in the province. He remained on good terms with the top Nationalist authorities at Nanking, and in November 1935 he was elected to the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang. Shortly after the Sino-Japanese "war began in 1937, Hsiung proposed to Chiang Kai-shek that his son Chiang Ching-kuo (q.v.), who had returned from the Soviet Union in April, be sent to Kiangsi to work under him. Chiang Kai-shek approved the plan, and Chiang Ching-kuo went to Nanchang in January 1938. After the Japanese military advance up the Yangtze valley, Hsiung removed the seat of the provincial government to T'aiho in the spring of 1939.

After a decade of service as governor of his native province, Hsiung was assigned to new responsibilities after the United States entered the war in December 1941. He was appointed to the Supreme National Defense Council, and in March 1942 he was named chief of a Chinese military mission to the United States. Shortly after the appointment was announced, Hsiung publicly warned the embattled Allies ofJapanese military strength and predicted that the Japanese would attack the Soviet Union. He then flew to Washington, where he worked to obtain for China the largest possible amount of United States aid.

The Chinese military mission at Washington was not admitted into the top-secret inner councils of the early wartime strategy conferences, and the United States was unable to allot to China the quantities of military supplies that the Chinese wanted. In July 1942, on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, Hsiung Shih-hui gave a speech in New York in which he accused the United States of having failed to fulfill its pledges to China and stated that the series of defeats suffered by the Allies after Pearl Harbor had led to "the most critical and dangerous crisis in China's history." China, he continued, was still waiting for large-scale American aid. If China were defeated, he warned, Japan might be able to wage war for a hundred years. Because of Chinese dissatisfaction with Allied war strategy, which gave first priority to the European theater, Hsiung and his mission were recalled to Chungking at the end of 1942. On 31 December 1942, just before departing, he met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hsiung returned to China in April 1943, after stopping in London for the announced purpose of studying the war situation.

In August 1943, Hsiung Shih-hui was appointed secretary general of the Central Planning Board, the organ responsible for wartime and postwar reconstruction. He held that office until the summer of 1945, when he was called upon to accompany T. V. Soong (q.v.) to Moscow for the negotiations which finally resulted in the signature, on 14 August, of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance.

Shortly thereafter, Hsiung Shih-hui was given a new assignment. On 31 August 1945 the National Government announced that, in connection with projected reestablishment of its authority in Manchuria, it planned to create a Northeast headquarters of the Military Affairs Commission, with Hsiung Shih-hui as director. A few days later, Hsiung was also given the post of chairman of the political affairs commission of the headquarters. His close ties with Chiang Kai-shek and Ho Ying-ch'in may well have played a part in determining his assignment to the top militarypolitical position in what was clearly to become a key post in the postwar competition for power in the Far East. Chang Kia-ngau (Chang Chia-ao, q.v.) was assigned responsibility for economic affairs in Manchuria, and Chiang Ching-kuo was named special foreign affairs commissioner. A substantial number of Hsiung Shih-hui's associates were named to posts in Manchuria.

Hsiung proceeded to his post at Changchun, which had been known as Hsinking while it had been the capital of Manchoukuo. Other Nationalist officials began to gather there to plan the reassertion of Chinese Nationalist authority in the area. Hsiung's initial task was to establish liaison with Marshal Rodion Ya. Malinovsky, the commander of the Soviet military forces which had entered Manchuria in August 1945. After Hsiung informed Malinovsky that the United States Navy was preparing to disembark Chinese Nationalist troops at the port of Dairen, the Soviet ambassador at Chungking on 6 October 1945 informed the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs that the Soviet government objected to the planned operation. Hsiung clashed with Malinovsky over the issue and made unsuccessful attempts to designate alternative ports in southern Manchuria at which the Chinese Nationalist troops could land. Hsiung then pressed for the use of airfield facilities at major Manchurian cities to enable the Nationalists to land both troops and civilian officials at these points from United States military aircraft. Malinovsky again demurred, and in October and early November 1945, Chinese Communist forces, which had moved rapidly to Manchuria from north China after the Japanese surrender, seized the airfield at Changchun and occupied the city.

The Chinese Communists established a local government at Changchun and confined the Nationalist officials there, about 500 men, to the South Manchurian Railway building which had been their headquarters. Malinovsky's forces did not assist the beleaguered Nationalists. On 9 November 1945, Hsiung Shih-hui flew to Nanking to report on the serious situation that had already developed in Manchuria. The National Government ordered its officials at Changchun to withdraw to Peiping in north China, and on 17 November they left Changchun by air. Chiang Ching-kuo and a few other officials remained behind for a period to maintain liaison with Malinovsky's headquarters. In 1946-47 Manchuria was a major theater in the conflict between the Nationalists and the Communists. Although the Nationalists scored some initial successes, a Communist offensive directed by Lin Piao (q.v.) in May and June 1947 gave the Communists the initiative. In July, the National Government at Nanking ordered nation-wide military mobilization, and, at the end of August, Chiang Kai-shek was forced to reorganize the Nationalist political and military command structure in Manchuria. Ch'en Ch'eng (q.v.), chief of the general staff, was assigned to replace Hsiung Shih-hui as director of the Northeast headquarters and of its political affairs commission. After his dismissal from the Manchurian command in the autumn of 1947, Hsiung was given a sinecure post as a strategy adviser at Nanking. When Nationalist power on the mainland collapsed in 1949, Hsiung Shih-hui did not follow Chiang Kai-shek and the National Government to Taiwan. He lived for a time in Hong Kong and Macao. Hsiung believed that the tiny Portuguese colony of Macao would retain its immunity, as it had during the Second World War. He lived there quietly and entertained some of the Portuguese officials of the colony. A border incident in the early 1950's apparently shocked Hsiung into the realization that Macao was not as secure a place of retirement as he had thought. He then moved to Bangkok, Thailand, where he reportedly suffered heavy financial losses after investing in a cotton mill. In 1954 Hsiung Shih-hui moved to Taiwan, where he lived in retirement at Taichung.